


in a word, in a phrase

by monstermash



Series: kiss your knuckles [7]
Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, M/M, Potential Spoilers, Trans Male Character, Trans Male V (Cyberpunk 2077), V is trans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:53:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28044984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monstermash/pseuds/monstermash
Summary: From time to time, he'll think of home.
Relationships: Goro Takemura & Misty, Goro Takemura & Viktor Vector, Male V & Goro Takemura, Male V & Misty, Male V & Viktor Vector, Male V/Goro Takemura, V/Goro Takemura
Series: kiss your knuckles [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1394260
Comments: 5
Kudos: 66





	in a word, in a phrase

**Author's Note:**

> this is sort of an AU of the fics i've already written?? it definitely follows the canon storyline a lot more than the rest of this series does, so it's more of an AU of an AU that just circles back around to canon territory. so beware spoilers lmao
> 
> fun fact: you can actually save Takemura during Search and Destroy, just don't listen to Johnny when he tells you to leave. also, how dare you cdpr for not letting V be able to smooch Takemura

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: so i went back and changed a few things. should still be mostly the same, but i thought of a really interesting character development thing for Takemura 👀

From time to time, he'll think of home.

Far from Tokyo, where the light pollution isn't nearly as bad. A town on the coast with clear night skies.

Home is where he can still look up and see the stars.

Lying back in the ripperdoc's operating chair and staring up at the lights, for a fleeting moment, he can pretend he is home and not sluggishly bleeding out, betrayed. Before the painkillers finally drag him under, Goro's thoughts turn to the man on the other side of the room. He hopes V does not succumb to his injuries; too much depends on the both of them surviving this. If V dies then Goro is as good as dead, the both of them becoming scapegoats, and while V is a criminal of sorts, the murder at Konpeki Plaza is a crime he is not guilty of.

But dragging the true culprit into the light will have to wait for later.

For now, Goro's eyes slide shut and he dreams of home.

\---

His earliest memory is the sea in winter.

Walking along the shore with his parents, cold wind nipping at his face, stuffing his pockets to the brim with seashells and fistfuls of sand.

The burn of freezing seawater when he got too close.

\---

Fury is too light a word for what Goro is feeling as he watches the playback of the security footage after Konpeki Plaza had gone into lock down.

Some of the cameras had been remotely shutdown, but all he needed was one good look at the murderers.

Two men. The taller and broader one never faces the cameras long enough, but the other one - the one with the modded mantis blades - looks right at them, though his face is blurred slightly. But it's enough to know, just enough to start digging until he's ferreted the both of them out. Reception had them marked down as R. Victorino and H. Conwell, arms dealers meeting Hajime Taki.

Clearly false identities, but what truly gives them away in the end is the Delamain.

(There's something off about all of this though, a creeping unease, something he can't quite shake.)

\---

Adam Smasher is not someone Goro thinks very highly of, but at least the 'borg has enough of a functioning brain left that he had the foresight to plant a tracker on the Delamain before letting them escape.

Its final stop before returning to its HQ was a bar in Heywood, El Coyote Cojo. All he finds there is the sounds of a woman crying and the corpse of one of the men, the taller of the two, but with the way his body is being cradled he looks small, smaller than should be possible. A mother grieving the loss of her son. While justice is his main priority, this isn't a moment he should bear witness to.

He leaves just as quietly as he arrived.

\---

Finding the fixer proves to be easier than finding the other murderer, who seemingly dropped off the face of the earth after arriving at the No-Tell.

"V's dead, I swear," DeShawn promises, but it's not good enough. Goro needs _proof._ "Dumped his body myself."

_Desperate to save his own skin,_ Goro thinks. Not the most reliable thing, desperation, but it's something he can use. A little pressure is all he needs. Either way, DeShawn will not live long; he may not have been the one who killed, but the blood is on his hands too all the same.

_"Where?"_ Goro presses the barrel of his gun closer, presses it right against the man's jaw.

"Municipal landfill, just outside the city. I'll show you."

\---

Bone under flesh against flesh over bone.

Some fight with one of the neighborhood kids. Some argument he cant even remember anymore that had gotten out of hand.

No more than nine when he'd learned to put his fists up, and they never came back down again.

\---

V is not what he was expecting. For some reason, he'd been expecting V's face to be just as blurry in person as it had been on the security footage.

Uncharacteristically foolish of him, but it's been a rather long day.

The half dead man DeShawn dragged from the trash heap doesn't match up with what Goro had assumed, and as to what he assumed... he isn't entirely sure himself. _This_ is the man responsible? This is the man who _'poisoned'_ an Arasaka? Something clearly isn't adding up here, but this man, V, will reveal the missing pieces to this puzzle. Goro will make sure of it.

"You smell like shit."

A wet laugh chokes its way out of V's throat, blood on his lips. "Yeah, well you're no... fresh daisy yourself, jackass."

V passes out again, and Goro stays focused on the road, only glancing occasionally at the man to make sure those mantis blades of his stay tucked away. 

It's only when they're ambushed that Goro thinks that perhaps he shouldn't have let that ridiculous _'poison'_ explanation slide by so easily.

\---

Switchbacks are the work of pure evil, Goro decides as he stumbles from the car.

Sure, the sharp turns had been the only thing keeping the remaining assassin from getting in a good swing with his own mantis blades, but they also came too close to careening off the road entirely for his liking.

Dragging V from the wreck leaves him short of breath, most likely due to the two bullets in his side, though it doesn't make it any less irritating.

"Don't you dare faint again," he grits out, hand pressing against his side tightly in a poor attempt to stem the bleeding. "Keep your eyes open."

V is fading, and fast, but Goro is no medic and V is in need of medical assistance that he cannot give. Though perhaps he shouldn't be worried; there's a familiar rage in V's eyes as soon as his gaze falls on the pinned assassin who is ineffectually lashing out.

_"Asshole."_

One shot rings out, but one shot is clearly all the merc needed.

\---

There's the sound of quiet crying.

His parents, the day he told them he was going to work for Arasaka.

(Those were not tears of joy.)

The mother from El Coyote Cojo, cradling her son close in the dim light of the bar.

(The sound of a breaking heart.)

The world swims around him as soon as he opens his eyes. Blinking it away, Goro finds himself still in the ripperdoc's clinic.

Everything aches and the crying, quiet as it is, makes his head feel like someone is trying to take an ice pick to it. A quick glance reveals that it isn't V, who is still passed out. Rolling his head to the left, he sees Vector, head in his hands, and Misty, hand on his shoulder and crouched at his side.

"I can't save him," he thinks he hears Vector whisper. Even Goro winces in sympathy at the palpable agony in the man's voice. "The damn thing's melted in the port, Misty. It's gonna flatline him and I can't stop it."

"You've given him time. That's more than most get."

_Time that's quickly running out,_ Goro wants to say. As much as he hates to admit it, if Arasaka finds them, that's it. Just a minor problem to be quietly and conveniently swept under the rug. Of course, he won't let that happen. Refuses to, really.

Brows furrowing, he leans back and thinks about what needs to be done next.


End file.
